


When Dawn Arrives

by JaneTheHero



Category: Transformers, Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, F/M, Friendship, Horses, Humour, Love, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-07-25 20:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20031604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneTheHero/pseuds/JaneTheHero
Summary: While on a morning run much like any other, Jean Gardner encounters an ancient alien artifact that changes her life forever. Now, thrust into the middle of a war, Jean must make an impossible choice: give up on her newfound abilities and allies, or risk her life trying to save them.





	1. Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you all think of this story I'm working on! 
> 
> Just a heads up that Prowl won't make an appearance in this story, and that this story takes place around the first movie in the Bay Universe with some changes to the plot and characters. I plan to update back and forth between this one and 'The Rising Sun'.
> 
> R + R please!
> 
> *Disclaimer: I don't own transformers*

_High up on a grassy hilltop littered with wild flowers, above the ranch and the country _road in northern Oregon, I plopped down, facing east, my eyes dazzled by the rising sun. Moments before, I’d removed my running shoes and my ankle-high socks, first having examined what was left of my left shoe. It had sprung apart during my uphill jog, causing the top flap to completely detach from the bottom sole and landing me facedown in the grass and dirt, perched awkwardly on the side of the steep hill. I’d lain there stunned, though I’d been in possession of them for several years and by then a minor hole had already started to develop near my left big toe, leaving me to even expect that this would happen. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t shocked when it did.

My shoe was gone. Actually gone.

I sat with its mate cradled in my lap like a baby, though of course it was futile. What is one shoe without the other shoe? It is nothing. I pondered launching them both down the hill, after all they were but a big lug of a thing, a shoe and a half of genuine heft that I otherwise would have to carry with me all the way on my three-mile trek back to the ranch. I lifted them high—preparing to catapult them both into the lush trees below—but then abruptly settled against it and instead lowered them back onto the grass at my side.

I was alone. I was barefoot. I was twenty-two years old and an orphan too. My mother died when I was eight. In the wake of her death, I moved from the city to live with my aunt to whom my mother had been estranged from for years.

I looked down at the trees below me, the tall tops of them waving gently in the dawn wind. I’d chosen to rest in this place because of the view—regardless of my now shoeless feet—I would have stopped here anyway. From my high point of vantage the ground fell away to the east in broken undulations and steppes. I knew even without being able to physically see it that over the series of hills in front of me—just before it reached the low level of the stream and the meadows a few miles away, there stood the ranch house.

There would be no sign of life about the place. Too early yet, I thought. Jodie had likely just fed the dogs and now was getting breakfast started on the stove.

I fastened my eyes on the point where I envisioned the tack shop was, were it not for the steep hill covered in black pine blocking it from my vision. It was a short distance from the wooden front porch, across the gravel walkway, through the fence gate, just beyond the gravel parking space, hidden under the gently sloping peaked roof.

Beside it lay one of our four pastures for the horses—they would be standing about the gate—waiting for me to come and feed them. After they were fed I would let them out the gate to the east, where they could wander across the meadow to the stream and stand during the heat of the day under the tall hemlock trees towards the north.

I gazed at my bare and battered feet, with their thick growth of callouses on the underside. My calves above them were muscled and pale and hairy, dusted with dirt and a constellation of bruises and scratches.

I looked toward the east, in its direction—the very thought of the ranch like a beacon to me. I looked north, to where the country road weaved in between the hilly landscape, and considered my options. I could dance in and around the broken hills and cliffs, or I could take the more direct route via the country road that passed by our property. There was a chance that a car would come speeding down the gravel road, but only rarely did that happen. Usually the only cars that used the road were customers, unless they were distant neighbours. It didn’t matter whether a car came along anyway. There was enough room for them to pass me by without difficulty.

Holding my shoe-and-a-half by the laces, I went through a couple of stretches before springing into a jog down the sloping hillside.

I had pulled out my ponytail, and the wind made a tousled mop of my frizzy straight ginger hair, and whipped colour into my pale cheeks that forever seemed to be dotted with a map of orange freckles. I wished, not for the first time, that my skin would golden instead of just accumulate more of the ever-present mass of freckles scattered across my nose, cheeks, and shoulders.

“Sun kisses,” my mother had called them adoringly.

As I ran across a field of thigh-high grass and down again, stems swaying in tune to the wind, intending to run a mile out to the edge of the country road, I felt so wondrously alive.

Above me, all the clouds in the sky had caught the colours of the sunrise, and there was a mingling of pink and red and gold and a crisp blue; and a wind that was wild, like the landscape itself was breathing, and it whipped and blew over the grass and my hair, making everything look so alive—

Suddenly, as I was passing a cluster of forty-foot, green pine trees growing at the bottom of the next hillside I was to ascend just before I reached the road, I felt as though I was no longer alone. I saw no movement, and I was unaware of any sound other than the wind, and my raspy breathing and thudding heartbeat; only instinct told me that I had company.

I was not alarmed at first, for I thought perhaps a deer or some other animal was nearby. But when I stopped and turned and looked back the way I had come, I glimpsed the figure of a woman standing in the thigh-high grass, near the upper half of the hill.

I was uneasy but not afraid. Perhaps if I got closer—

I headed west again, up the grassy hillside, quickly finding my rhythm. I went only fifty yards, however, before the figure vanished seemingly into thin air. I halted and, looking all around, wondered what I had glimpsed. Had she simply collapsed in the grass? I ventured farther up the hillside; looking intently into the grass for signs that someone laid between the tall stems.

At last, when nothing was found, I turned to head east again, only to glimpse someone standing near the northern end of the hill, looking at me. I broke into a fast run just as the woman vanished in the blink of my eye.

I never gave serious thought to that possibility that I was in any real danger. Aside from the occasional animal, I never saw another person this far out here. I was miles away from civilization in every direction, and people driving down the country road rarely ventured out of their cars to wander around the rugged landscape.

I topped the hill and stood staring. From here I looked north over a hundred miles of broken undulations and steppes. Below me a forest of tall trees guarded the edge of the next incline, rippling in the wind—

The woman stood just in front of those trees, staring at me. Though I couldn’t make out the details her face, I was not so far away that I couldn’t make out the red locks of hair framing her head and neck, and her burgundy tank top and dark green shorts—

At this an uncomfortable feeling seized me. Her appearance nearly matched my own, and I found myself wondering if I was awake. Perhaps this early-morning run was indeed part of a dream, and perhaps I was actually asleep in bed, sprawled across lavender sheets.

Then our eyes met. They were a softly radiant green like the eyes of a person that had a beam of light pointed at them.

For a moment, peering directly down at her, her gaze transfixed me. I broke into a jog without realizing it, and soon I was running down the hillside toward her. I was almost to the bottom when she suddenly vanished, just as she had before, and I was left running towards nothing. I halted, and listened for any sounds aside from that of my footsteps and laboured breathing. I felt strangely as though I was being led somewhere by visions of my doppelganger, and since the woman had yet to try and hurt me in any way, I felt curious rather than frightened.

Standing still, sheathed in a film of sweat, I presently began to shiver in the chill spring air. To maintain body heat, I jogged to the tree line, watching all around, expecting to see the woman appear some fifty yards away from me again. I glimpsed her further into the trees, and ran toward to where she was standing.

I made no attempt to imagine who or what the woman might be. Analysis of this weird experience would have to wait for later; now I simply accepted that, be it all a dream or not, the impossible was very much possible at this moment.

I was less than ten yards away when my doppelganger vanished into the air again, but when I glimpsed what lay directly ahead of me, sticking out of the dirt and grass, I stumbled to a halt. It was shaped like a cube, but enormous, spanning larger than even our ranch house, and covered in all sorts of weird glyphs. The mysterious woman was nowhere to be seen, and I marvelled at the sight of what was most likely some alien artifact—its very existence unknown to all but myself.

Rounding the cube and returning to the spot from which I had first laid eyes upon it, I decided that it appeared to be harmless enough. I had not even an inkling as to what it might be, but cautiously ventured closer to it anyway; the pine needles poking the bottoms of my bare feet. Standing at the base of the cube and looking up, I felt smaller than a weed growing at the trunk of a pine tree—and I wondered, not for the first time, whether I was truly awake or not.

Then I pressed my hand against its surface, feeling a jolt of electricity pierce my entire body, trying but failing to tear my hand away as the entire cube seemed to erupt into a million fragments, shrinking down, down, down—

And then—just like that—in the blink of an eye, it was over.

For a moment, sitting in the pine, I stared at the now portable-sized cube in shock. The jolt had knocked me backwards onto my rump, and I sat there wondering what I should do now. I looked at my hand that had come into contact with the cube, observing that it appeared perfectly fine, excluding a few tendrils of blue that lit up my veins before vanishing altogether into my body.

_Now_ fear seized me.

I had no idea what the hell I had just come into contact with or what would happen to me or whether I should turn it into the police or—

I wondered what time it was now. It wouldn’t be long before breakfast was ready. Standing on the porch, Jodie would ring the bell, letting me know it was time to come inside and get washed up. The bacon and eggs was sizzling on the stove top, the table was set, orange juice poured.

I couldn’t very well sit here all day—Jodie always lectured me if I was late. And that wasn’t all, there was still the list of chores that needed to be done around the ranch too, all before my shift started at the tack shop.

I broke my paralysis, stood up off my bed of prickly pine needles, and gazed hard at the cube sitting at my feet. What to do, what to do—finally I bent down and picked it up with both hands—one of which was still clutching my dangling shoes by the laces. Relief washed over me when nothing freaky happened upon my touching it again, and I tucked it under my arm before turning and running back the way I had come.


	2. Splitting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transformers are coming, I promise! Just flushing out the characters first!
> 
> R + R please!
> 
> *Disclaimer: I don't own transformers*

_By the time I entered the kitchen, Jodie Gardner had already finished eating and was in _the middle of loading and washing her dishes in the sink.

The roomy kitchen was full of bright sunshine from the windows that were poised above the two-basin sink, overlooking the pasture that housed our horses at night, next to the tack shop across the gravel walkway. It made squares of gold on the wooden floorboards; and sitting next to the sink and stove there were pots with gay-looking Scented Geranium flowers in them. A little orange tabby cat sat in one of the squares of gold on the floor washing her face.

The hard living at the ranch had not deprived Jodie of her figure. At forty-five, she looked not much older than when she was twenty, if the photograph in her scrapbook was anything to go by.

Of above-average height, with a long slender waist, her curves were held in place by trained muscles, and, as she walked, there was a lightness in her step which came partly from natural vigor and partly from the way she always kept her head up and shoulders back to face whatever was to be faced.

Her skin was a pale ivory colour, dry and weather beaten in some places, dotted with a scattering of freckles in others, but not without a lustre that gave her a smooth rather than sickly look; and the thin lips of her rather wide mouth, with soft curves, were only slightly pink. Her dry hair, of the same ginger color as my own, fell just long enough past her shoulder to be brushed back off her forehead and fastened in a messy bun above her neck. Riding, she sometimes pulled out her bun and let her hair go wild in the wind; and then, with her pale skin and her light blue eyes that lit up to reflect the infinite ocean above our heads, I did not consider our genetic white skin to resemble that of a corpse as much as I considered it to be a family gemstone I was only too happy to have inherited.

I was late to breakfast.

Coming in, I first discreetly abandoned the cube I was still carrying under my heavy woollen sweater sitting on the chair by the door.

Then I said, “Good morning, Jodie,” pulled out the one empty chair parked in front of a plate covered with a stack of bacon and two eggs—dusted lightly in salt and pepper—and sat down. I was afraid to look at Jodie because her eyebrows were knit in a disproving look when she turned to watch me sit down whilst drying a cup in her hands. Her blazing blue eyes were hard to meet. They burned into you out of what was otherwise a nearly unreadable face. Often I would turn away or look down after an encounter.

Jodie put away the cup she’d been drying and picked up a plate from out of the sink. “I suppose it will be no surprise to you that your breakfast is only mildly warm,” she said. “You might want to eat it before it cools off completely.”

I picked up my knife and fork and tried to focus on cutting up my eggs. I hated so to eat in front of her rather than with her, it was hard to eat anything at all with her watching me.

While I ate there was a silence, Jodie drying her plate and putting it away to grab another dish out of the sink. I felt slightly sick eating. I looked down, feeling like I was going to vomit onto my plate.

I finished my breakfast though and finally carried my dirty dishes over to the sink.

I looked up and met Jodie’s eyes.

She set her hand on her hip. “Just out of curiosity,” she said, “why are your feet covered in dirt?”

“Oh that. My shoe fell apart while I was jogging,” I answered. 

“Is that why you were late to breakfast?”

Not wanting her to know the real reason, I hedged, “Yes.”

“Well, be sure to finish your chores and get cleaned up before your shift this afternoon.” Jodie had turned away and was picking up her purse and keys from the table by the front door. “I’m going into town for a bit to pick up some things. Can I get you anything?”

My eyes shot to the lump under my sweater by the door, hoping that she failed to notice it. “No, thanks.”

As I watched out the kitchen windows at Jodie walking down the gravel pathway to the driver door of her ten-year old jeep, I released a breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding, and turned away and began washing my dishes in the soap and water filled sink.

My cat was brushing against my legs, looking up at me, begging.

“Are you hungry, Bella?” I set down the plate I was washing and walked over to where her food-dish was kept on a chair against the wall across the room. It was empty. I picked it up and refilled it with some kibble and placed it back so Bella could eat.

I returned to the sink and rinsed the clean dishes under hot water.

Standing there I could see the backdrop of green hills in the north under the bright blue sky. It was a day when I wanted to be outdoors, riding on the range, where the wind would whip my hair and drive me the way it drove the swaying pine trees and wildflowers.

But first, bed-making, feeding, grooming, bathing—

I dried the dishes rapidly and put them away.

There was still the matter of the cube to deal with so I ran upstairs with my sweater bundled around said artifact, and went into my room, standing still for a few moments looking around.

I loved my room. The walls were a creamy-yellow, and there was a large window overlooking the river that ran through our eastern pastures. At night I could see the stars from it. Sunshine poured in.

Best of all, I loved my little bed, because from where it was parked right under the window I had a fantastic view of the starlit sky at night and could listen to and feel the cool evening breeze as I slowly fell asleep. It was like sinking into a pair of warm, embracing arms every night.

It wasn’t very tidy. I was responsible for making my bed every morning, and I had made it in a hurry, before I went out running. Now would be a good time to straighten it up. The quilt, which was white with watercolour dabs of yellow and lavender on it, was crooked and crinkled. I evened out the sides and flattened it over the mattress underneath, then paused, my eyes on the wall at the head of the bed in the corner.

There was this picture, about one foot square, with a flat wooden frame an inch wide.

And inside the frame—

I straightened, moved up to the picture and stood examining it. I’d had it ever since I could remember. It was a penciled portrait of myself when I was a baby, smiling nakedly up at whomever was just out of the frame when the real-life picture had been taken.

On the back of the picture there was something to look at as well.

I lifted the picture off its hooks and turned it over so I could look at the back of it. There was an inscription written at the bottom, which I knew by heart.

_To my beautiful baby girl,_

_ I will love you forever and always._

_Mommy_

I placed the picture back on its hooks and went back to retrieve the cube off my bed, holding it up as to ascertain whether or not it would fit. When I was done I scurried back downstairs to retrieve a hammer and broom, which I bounded back upstairs with.

Then I lined the hammer up to the wall directly behind where the framed picture hung, and swung, causing a small hole to appear and pieces of wall to tumble onto the wooden floorboards. I widened the hole manually, using my hands, until I’d made a crater just large enough to house the cube snugly inside.

I hung the picture back up and picked up the broom and began to sweep the floor, singing, “_Your smile is like a breath of spring. Your voice is soft like_ _summer rain. And I cannot compete with you_—”

I sighed deeply. I didn’t feel very well and again wondered if I was going to be sick. I wanted nothing more than to just collapse onto my bed, but with chores to complete, I couldn’t very well waste time by taking a nap.

Resolutely I dumped the debris from the dustpan into the garbage by the door, changed the bag, picked up the broom, and headed downstairs.

I hurried down the gravel walkway. I needed to get the horses fed. They’d been near the gate waiting for almost two hours and I usually fed them earlier. I’d put their full buckets down and get to work grooming them while they were eating. Afterwards, I could sneak in a quick nap maybe.

I trotted along towards the shed where we stored all our equipment and feed bins, with the dogs coming over to greet me. Cole, the medium-sized, pure black mutt, with a dash of white splattered across his chest, got to me first, grinning with eagerness. Clancy, the big Irish Setter, with the chestnut red coat and the intelligent brown eyes lumbered over more slowly, polite and patient, waving his thick tail as he looked at me.

I patted each on the head, keeping on my way. When I reached the shed, I entered and quickly retrieved the necessary goods.

Then I went over to the horses.

Tango and Sirocco were always the first greet me at the gate. They lipped at my clothes and hair, trying to shove their muzzles into the feed buckets I had with me, but I shoved past them and walked further down the side of the fence, knowing they were following closely behind, before hanging the buckets onto the hooks I had attached to the fence. As usual, each attempted to crowd the other out of one bucket before settling down and each eating out of their own bucket respectively.

I smiled at their antics. Then I hooked another bucket onto the fence for Lady, a small chestnut mare who was as quiet as she was lovely.

All three were retired racehorses Jodie had adopted over the years. The first and oldest being Lady, after which had come Sirocco, and then Tango. Sirocco and Tango were crazy about each other. They were the same age—nine years—and had retained their more sensitive and spirited personalities from racing, regardless of how much time Jodie had put into retraining them.

The only horse that was neither from the track or a thoroughbred was a black and white Irish Cob mare named Gypsy.

I loved her more than the others simply because she was, in many ways, _all my own_. Jodie had managed, against all reason, to buy Gypsy in the winter I’d just turned sixteen from a couple who bred horses a few towns over. They wanted to sell one of their purebred weanling fillies for a reduced price because she was blind, and even though Jodie hadn’t planned on getting any more horses at the time, she went to see the filly and bought the horse anyway.

From the first time I laid eyes on her I was in love. There was something magnetizing in the curious and fearless way in which she’d lifted her head and flared her nostrils. Her cream-coloured tail was lifted high, and with the full tossing striped mane, she seemed to me a fairy horse, who moved with a lovely springing step.

And so I had given her a name, and dedicated myself to raising her. Over the years, she had grown and filled out, so that now in full maturity, the mare stood just over fourteen hands. She had lost nothing of her grace and ardour, and, trotting, still came over to meet me, full mane and tail sailing, head up, and the free springing step. I cupped my hands around her inky nostrils and blew gently in greeting to her, before setting down her measure of oats in front of her.

I stood combing my fingers through her thick mane above her withers as I tried to ignore the wave of fatigue I felt crashing into me. I looked around for some place where I could rest a moment.

Finally, I just sunk down where I was standing and sat on my folded pale legs. I would rest a few minutes then groom the horses.

I lay down next to Gypsy’s broad hooves and listened to the sounds of her chewing. The sky was close, and the blue stretched on endlessly above me—littered with solid-looking clouds—the wind drove them slowly by. The grass I was lying on smelled sweet; and I could feel the rays of the sun warming my face—in a moment I was sound asleep.

I woke with a jerk, coming up from such a deep place that I must’ve been sleeping for hours.

I sat up bewildered and tried to gather my wits, seeing Gypsy grazing on grass a few feet away. Then I remembered and scrambled to my feet—gasping from a pain in my body that I didn’t recall being there when I’d fallen asleep—I nearly fell down again—I stumbled but caught myself in time—half jogging, half limping out of the pasture to the house.

As I threw open the door, I almost collided with Jodie, who pulled back in time to avoid a crash, and I stopped as I felt a weird sensation in my chest.

“What in God’s name—” Jodie was looking at me with irritation. “Where exactly have you been?”

I brushed my hair out of my face and looked down, embarrassed. “I was sleeping in the pasture.”

“Sleeping! Did you get your chores done?”

“No—I meant to but I fell asleep after I fed the horses.”

I could see bags of groceries sitting on the kitchen table through the gap between Jodie’s right side and the door as we spoke.

“Well,” said Jodie, “go finish your chores. The shop opens soon and I want the horses looked after before then.” She brushed past me, headed for her powder-blue truck, which still had its doors open. “And while you’re at it, remember to put on a pair of shoes before any customers arrive.”

I didn’t make any reply. My face burned, and I hobbled back down to the shed and grabbed the grooming box.

My mood lifted as I set to work currying and brushing the horses. There was something so refreshing about being close to them—I could feel the heat from their bodies—hear their deep breathes—I started to sing softly as I worked—

_ Who are you, my pretty fair maid_

_ Who are you, me honey_

_ She answered me quite modestly, I am me mother’s darling—_


	3. Stirring The Pot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up that the Jazz I feature in this story will bear more of a resemblance to G1 Jazz than BayMovie Jazz simply because I'm not all that fond of how Bay portrayed him. In "The Rising Sun" I portrayed Bay Jazz as he appeared in the movie, only because the part he plays in that story is minor compared to that of which he will be playing in this one. Hope that clears a few things up in case people end up wondering!
> 
> Really hope you enjoy this chapter! Read and review please!
> 
> *Disclaimer: I don't own transformers*

_The tack shop, about thirty feet ahead, was a small plain building that sat facing south _near the smallest of our eastern pastures. One point of it ran into the pasture in the east, one side near the corral, another facing the gravel parking lot and ranch house, and on the fourth side, the green land bounded up the hills and disappeared over the blue horizon. It was called the Pass By Tack Shop; and, while inside was tiny and full of tight and high aisles, it was probably one of my all time favourite places to be. The shop was packed with everything horse-related, from tack to grooming supplies to riding clothes to Breyer model horses—twenty of which, I still had on display in my bedroom.

When I pulled open the heavy wooden door, causing the little bell to ring, an immediate warm gust of leather-tinted air rushed to meet me. And I quickly entered the storage room to the right of the front counter and flicked the AC on low, coming back out, stepping over to the large-paneled window behind the counter, and taking the sign in my hands to turn it over from CLOSED to OPEN. Now to start dusting and sweeping and restocking some of the shelves—

I back over to the storage room and looked over the merchandise Jodie had recently received from her suppliers with a checklist in hand, as well as the lists that contained items some of our customers had ordered. Might as well get them bagged and boxed and ready for pickup.

I tore open a box and set to work, feeling tired in a way that made it difficult to focus on each task as they came to me, despite the nap I had taken earlier. I didn’t dare rest for fear that I might drop asleep again, though my whole worn body felt as if I were pushing through deep water with each step. I grabbed a cream soda from a tiny fridge in the storage room and took a swig, hoping the sugar would energize me some, but that only caused my nausea to return full-force. I darted out the side door in the storage room and puked on the grass, pausing when I saw undigested chunks of my breakfast. Perhaps I had caught the flu bug from someone? I had felt perfectly fine yesterday though.

I wondered if perhaps it might have something to do with the cube that had caused my veins to light up blue this morning—I leaned down closer to my vomit as if some hidden clue might be encoded within the muck—if I squinted hard enough I just might find it—

I gagged at the smell though, and headed back inside to go rinse my mouth out with water.

I continued working, unable to focus on anything except my growing desire to sleep. I wasn’t thinking of the orders I was putting together, relying instead on my body to go through the actions for me. I wasn’t thinking of riding Gypsy on the range later. I wasn’t even thinking of the cube and whether I should turn it into authorities. I was thinking only of moving myself forward. My mind was devoid of anything but that one desire. My body was the opposite: a bag of aches and pains. Every time I moved, it hurt. And if I stopped, even for a minute, to rest, sleep would immediately weasel its way into fuzzing my senses so that I was forced to remain constantly on the move without break, lest some customer walk in to find me sprawled across the floor asleep.

By the time I had all the orders packaged and about a handful of customers had come and gone, I was beyond exhausted. I leaned languidly against the window panel and stood watching the horses graze in the pasture.

They were all glossy-hided and well-fleshed—even Lady who was entering her eighteenth year. Tango and Sirocco, standing together, suddenly became playful. Tango raised her pretty head, leaped, and took off at a gallop across the pasture with Sirocco giving chase. When he caught up to her, she whirled and ran the other way, not really trying to escape as the gelding once again caught up to her and the chase began all over again. The hairs of manes and tails stood out strongly in flowing, incessant movement, and the sun blazed down on them, glistening on their round haunches and the bulging neck muscles.

I was just starting to wobble on my feet when a yellow Camaro with racing stripes pulled up and a young man got out. The sight of the sporty car was enough to snap me back to wakefulness, as uncommon and out of place it was way out here in the country, aside from a few successful ranchers who owned flashy cars; though it was the man who really caught my attention. He was rather lanky with an oval head of short, dark hair, thin lips, and a boyish face.

He couldn’t have been older than twenty, and I was wondering how it was a teenager with a fancy car and who looked as though he had never worked a day in his life had wound up parked outside of our small tack shop.

He looked nervous and kind of in a hurry from what I could tell, and it was then that I noticed another showy car pull up beside the Camaro: a gorgeous white sports car with blue racing stripes on its hood. No one got out of that car though so I turned my attention back to the boy who was pulling open our heavy wooden door to my left, kind of struggling with it as many people did at first, before squeezing in sideways through a small gap he had managed to create. He stood there, looking lost for a few moments. (Obviously, this kid knew little to nothing about horses. He lifted a bridle up and seemed surprised at the weight. But it wasn’t until he tried to put it back, accidently dropping it, as well as sending a couple of others clattering onto the floor, that I finally took pity on him and waved him over.)

“Yes. Hello. I was uh wondering if you had any collector items by chance for sale,” the boy said, and stood with one hand leaning against the counter, kind of like someone who was trying to appear cool or casual but in reality just came off as sort of awkward.

“You’ll have to be a little more specific,” I said, amused. “We sell a variety of products that could be classified as collector items.” I motioned to our wall of Breyer horse models, over at our clothing merchandise, and then below me at the jewellery within the glass counter. “If you can tell me just what it is you’re looking for I might be able to offer up some of our items,” I explained, looking at him, wishing he would get in his car and drive away. I was beyond tired and this sort of interaction was not helping me conserve what little, non-existent, energy I had left.

“What it is I’m looking for,” he said, looking at me blankly. I nodded, waiting for him to go on, and he seemed to zone out for a second, his dark eyes wandering to the window behind me, before snapping back to mine with a renewed vigour. “What it is I’m looking for. Right.” He suddenly leaned in. “You see, the thing is—”

Just then the little bell on the door rang, and I turned to see a coloured man walk in with ease.

If I thought the boy I was talking with looked out of place in tack shop, _this_ guy, whoever he was, looked like he came from another planet. Long and leanly muscular, he wore a pair of sunglasses he didn’t bother to take off and a white jacket with—strange enough—a pair of blue stripes running out from the neck all the way down to the cuffs that reminded me of the racing-like car parked outside. Black hair, dreadlocked and tied backwards off his forehead, fell just past his shoulders. He looked my age, maybe a year or two older, and he walked in a way that spoke loudly of just who he was as a person—handsome and charmingly sure of his place at the very top of the heap, confident that the world was his for the taking and that he was safe in it.

As I looked at him, I suddenly became conscious of my insufficiencies. I still hadn’t had the chance to wash my feet, which were bare of any shoes, and covered in calluses. Also, my hair: It fell down to my mid-back, and I hadn’t even bothered to, like, brush it since this morning, giving me the appearance of someone who had just woken up. Furthermore, I had skin that was white as a sheet despite spending most of my time outdoors, and was covered in freckles. I looked like a pale-skinned ghost who lived in the wild. This was not even to mention that I hadn’t changed out of my clothes since this morning—or for that matter, applied any fresh layers of deodorant or perfume since my time spent sweating, rolling in the dirt and grass, and grooming horses. And yet—the man smiled at me as he sauntered past.

I turned my attention back to the boy who was still across from me, who I noticed was also watching the other man roam casually up and down the aisles with a rather bewildered expression on his face. I waved a hand in front of his face to get his attention.

“Sorry,” he said, his intense eyes meeting mine. “He’s a friend of mine. Sort of. I mean, we only just met, but I would consider us to be friends.” He nodded, never breaking eye contact, and tapped his fingers nervously on the countertop. I was a bit weirded out by him at this point, but nevertheless waited for him to continue, until finally he just shook his head and grabbed a fistful of his short hair loosely. “Sorry. I feel like we got off to a bad start” he said, and extended his hand over the counter to shake mine. “Sam Witwicky. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Jean Gardner,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it. I wondered if he could smell me. I was past the point where I could smell myself.

“So listen, about the uh the _thing_ I’m looking for,” Sam said nodding at me. “I don’t know the official name of it. What I _do_ know is that it’s cube-like—” He painted an imaginary box in the air with his hands while looking at me, as if I would know what the hell that meant. “—shaped like, well, like a _cube_.”

“Sorry, but we don’t carry any products that fit that description,” I said, and met his eyes without looking away in an effort to appear as unhesitant as possible. It was eerily silent aside from the low hum of the AC in the storage room until the boy across from me cleared his throat and gave me a once over, looking like he didn’t know what to make of me.

“You sure you haven’t come across anything?” he persisted, staring at me in the eyes.

He hadn’t referred to anything in particular in that sentence, but I suddenly felt confused. We didn’t seem to be talking about the cube anymore.

“Is your friend looking to purchase the cube too?” I asked, motioning with a hand over at the other young man strolling up and down the aisles. It struck me then that I was a woman, alone in a cramped tack shop with two strange men, one of who was asking bizarre questions. I still wasn’t afraid. But I did wish that they would just hurry up and leave.

“Uh yeah, actually,” Sam Witwicky said. He glanced over at him and the man grinned, looking in our direction, his sunglasses still shrouding his eyes from view. I smiled politely, and then turned back to Sam who was staring down at my filthy feet with a mildly baffled expression.

I simply followed his gaze down, so that now both of us were staring at my feet—too exhausted to offer any sort of explanation or feel embarrassed. After a few seconds of this silence, Sam cleared his throat again in a way that people usually did when they had run out of things to say, and I lifted my head back up to find his eyes upon my own.

“Thanks for taking the time to try and help us in our search,” he said, and extended his hand to shake mine over the glass countertop again. “I guess we’ll just have to keep looking elsewhere.”

“Sorry I couldn’t produce what it is you’re looking for,” I said.

“You haven’t come across anything cube-like while out riding your horses, by any chance, have you?” There was a hopeful glint in his face.

“Well, I’d _know_ it if I had, I think. Though I haven’t encountered anything so far,” I said, and laughed, though my stomach did a little somersault. What even gave him the impression that any of the horses out there belonged to _me_? Was it my bare, calloused feet? For all he knew, I could simply be a part time employee.

“Right,” he said, looking for all intentions and purposes like he had more he wanted to say. “Good luck with your tack shop.”

“Good luck . . . finding whatever cube you’re looking for,” I said, and waved as he pushed open the door and left.

I turned to do the same at the other young man in the shop, but found that he had already left. Weird: I didn’t recall having heard the little bell chime. But then I hadn’t exactly been paying attention to anything besides my conversation with Sam. I watched said boy get into his car through the window, observing with unease as he sat there for a moment, seeming to talk to—well—himself, as no one else was in the car with him that I could see.

I couldn’t see through the tinted windows in the sports car parked silently beside his.

Finally they drove off. I stood there for a while, wondering if the black man had stolen anything while I’d been distracted without even bothering to take a quick look around to check. I felt more tired than I ever had that I could remember. I could barely keep my head up. I wondered where Jodie was. Last I’d seen she was starting up the sit-on lawn mower to cut the grass in front of the house and surrounding the lane-way. I pressed a hand against my forehead and suddenly had the urge to take a nap on my bed. Why shouldn’t I? The shop would be closed in half an hour anyway.

I flipped the sign from OPEN to CLOSED against the window and dragged my body out the door and then across the gravel lot, onto the front porch, and through the door. I zombie-walked until I reached my bedroom upstairs. Then I collapsed on top of my bed and finally, _finally,_ gave into the sleep I so needed.


End file.
